Breakfast.

Food.

Nutrition.

....waking up.

Aboli, bleary-eyed, plopped into the furthest Slytherin spot from the front because it was CLOSEST to the entrance of the Great Hall. Merlin, was she exhausted. She had stayed up entirely too late wrapped up in her own thoughts, and even once she was asleep she was plagued by horrific nightmares. Nightmares she hadn't had in a bit, and others she had never had before.

She felt awful. Her blue eyes stared at the plate with toast on it as she tried to process how she felt about her dreams. "Where is it..." she said to herself as she dug through her bag. Her dream journal??? Hello? Ah, there it was! She pulled out the midnight blue and gold notebook, charmed to open only at the touch of her finger. She pulled off one of her gloves in a dainty way before pressing her pointer finger's tip to the spot on the notebook. It fluttered open to the page she had left off on. Soon she was recording the three dreams she had had the previous night.

Three IS a significant number... She thought to herself. Her neat, loopy handwriting soon filled the page. Third person - out of body viewing. Setting: the old house. It's only me and my father... And etc, etc.

Her dream journal is for her eyes only.

Know who had an extremely full and restful four-ish hours of sleep the previous night? This kid. Know who had a night full of intense dreams that got them pumped up and ready for the day immediately upon waking? This kid. Know who'd been out for a run, back inside to get ready, and then reached the Great Hall with plenty of time to spare? You can probably figure it out by now.

Strolling into the Great Hall, Nem's eyes immediately landed on Song. Naturally, as she was sat right at the near end of the table. Diverting from their intended destination - Ravenclaw - Nem headed to the Slytherin table instead. Might have attempted a quick snoop at the diary or notebook or whatever it was too, but lacked the interest or conviction to really try all that hard.

"Last minute homework, Aboli?" they chirped at Song, dropping onto the bench beside her. "And you a prefect."

Why are my dreams always in third person? She thought to herself, about to continue her detailed description of eeeeverything she could remember when a voice interrupted her. Aboli looked up, scoffed, and returned to writing. "I never do my homework last minute, Upstead. I've already finished the essay Trent gave me...what was it, two days ago? And turned it in. I'm offended you would even think I'm a procrastinator," she needed him to KNOW that she was on top of her game, all right?

And his implications, too, mentioning her badge. She clicked her tongue. "At the rate you're sucking up to Trent, you'll be prefect soon. Maybe even replace me by the end of term," she said in reply, only stopping to try to wrack her brains about what had happened in the dream after her father called her the name she did NOT like and tried her best to forget existed. You know, except when it cropped up in her dreams. "He..laughed, right," she muttered and with a flourish of her quill continued the narrative.

"It's a dream journal. Not homework," she explained coldly. "My mother interprets dreams so...I also like to try to interpret them myself."

She could only imagine what kind of messed up dreams NEM had.

Nem let out a little laugh, appearing to all the world to be amiable and friendly, as they reached for a jug of water and poured a cup out for themselves. "Do you always let people know how to get under your skin?" they asked, mentally filing that little snippet of information away.

Setting the jug down, Nem took a long drink of water, revelling in the cool blast that came from cold water right after brushing the teeth. "Not sucking up. Just turned out that my methods for that class were the sort of thing he was looking for. Not like we knew he'd had a personality transplant." Not at first, at least. Sure, it quickly became obvious, but even then it was less a case of 'sucking up' and more a sudden closer alignment of mindsets. Nem had done nothing too out of the ordinary. It was something they'd put some thought into over the past few days, though; rein it in, or throw caution to the wind? "I'm not fussed about prefect. Wouldn't say no if they offered it, mind you." Those badges could be more trouble than they were worth though. People started to expect things. Prefects were unlikely to do anything unnoticed. They got away with little, and became walking targets to boot. Was a modicum of power really worth it? Maybe.

For a moment, Nem just observed Song as she added to her dream journal or whatever, sipping at their water. "Interpret as in Divination?" they asked after a pause. "Or, like, psychoanalysis kind of thing?"

And, also, while they had her here, and before they diverted too far down another path, Nem quickly added, as though as an afterthought. "Hey, you're not still sour about that detention stuff, are you? I thought you'd have figured out why I named you."

The question led Aboli to another scoff. Her eyes flickered upward from her book to eye Nem carefully. What did she make of him, exactly? Her feelings towards the younger student were mixed, but recently she was really miffed at him. Although she found his commentary generally amusing in classes from time to time, she altogether didn't know. She did, however, have one way of knowing the true Nem. Her gloved hands twitched, but she knew it would be a bad idea indeed.

"Usually." Was all she said in response to that. She thought if people knew what irked her, they could potentially avoid it, but BUT that was only if she assumed most people didn't go around wanting to annoy her. Look at the slew of first years, this year, though, and that was not the case. Generally annoying bunch. Maybe Nem had a point - she should probably nOT broadcast her irritants.

Personality transplant got an amused sort of snort from the prefect. "Good one. I personally think something happened over the summer that has led to this...personality change. Most people go through an awful ordeal when their personalities change soooooo drastically. I almost feel sorry for him if that's the case. We really should have a school psychiatrist," she sighed and shook her head. A healer was not enough, either. Someone TRAINED with that sort of stuff - like her mother, ahem - was needed as well, clearly. "No offense, but you'd make a terrible prefect. I can't see you dealing with the younger ones with any tact. Not that I've had much luck with that EITHER." HA. She shut her journal in self-irritation and finally looked Nem right in the eyes.

What was the endgame here? Had he come to apologize? To make her feel worse? To amends? Somehow, she thought none of the above. What other motivation could there be, then? Nem was not a creature of randomness, she sensed. "Both. I have interest in both fields. Often, they can be linked, I find." She said with all the authority of someone whose PARENT was an expert on something. Clearly, if her other was an expert, SHE was also an expert. Duh. That's just how it worked!

Ha.

HAAAAA.

Aboli SQUINTED at Nem. "Sour? Me? HA. Never," she said, her tone dripping with sarcasm. "Nemesis Upstead....I have never had detention in my LIFE. And YOU thought you were getting me into one, even if, come to find out, I had one on my own. So yes, I am feeling sour. But time will pass, and suuuuurely I'll get over. I don't EVER hold grudges," she crossed her arms and continued to stare him down, her brown eyes not BUDGING from Nem's features. "I have not figured it out other than you wanting to make an enemy."

It was brilliant, just brilliant! Cassie was so excited to get to be able to help with the newest additions to the great hall. What fun was it that they got to use the gold they found to improve the school. With all the wonderful new items spread out she looked around, "Alright we need to get the old curtains down and put up these gold lined ones, as well as get these old wooden tables out of the way for the new." Wasn't it lovely that the headmaster's new chair was gold and diamond encrusted!

She took the chair and started to move it to the beautiful new staff table. The table cloth just shined with it's fancy silk and gold embroideries. Turning she waved her wand to start bringing the floating candles down, they would of course being replaced with the most expensive candles that could be found.

Josh had been spending his free period in the Great Hall pretending to work on some homework. The homework was actually laid out there just...there was not much studying to be done considering he had brought his acoustic guitar along with him too. So he had been strumming along, trying to sort out some of the thoughts in his head, when Professor Cassie had arrived...with many a thing in tow.

Uuuuuuuuuuh...

Swinging his guitar around him to wear a bit like a backpack, the sixth year moved towards the Divination professor and kind of just stared at her. A bit dumbfounded. "What...is all this, professor?" he asked, confused as always. "...don't we have house elves to take care of...things like that?" He wasn't purposefully trying to sound privileged by his guerry...but didn't they?

Adam had just finished up his third snack of the day - he had been RAVENOUS lately which hopefully meant he was about to hit a growth spurt and be all cool and tall like his brother - when he noticed the Divination professor bringing out all sorts of things and talking about taking down candles? What was happening?

His attention was quickly drawn to the fancy gold tablecloth she was using to decorate the staff table, his mouth opening slightly in awe as he watched. "WHOA! That's some nice stuff there, Professor! What's the big occasion?" he asked. WAS THE QUEEN COMING TO DINNER?

Ashley stared at the new decorations. At least some of them read: all of them were tacky and not worth the money, in her opinion anyway. The headmaster's chair ahem. She frowned slightly, but kept that that thought to herself. "Wow. Somebody has recently acquired a large amount of cash." She was pretty sure it was from the possibly-cursed treasure chest they had found. She remembered an old muggle movie, called pirates of the.. something something. It was part of a series, and a part of the plot was people found some cursed gold and it turned them into undead and there was blood and money involved in breaking the curse. Anyway, Ashley hoped it wouldn't end up like that.

Ivy was walking quickly into the Great Hall hoping she hadn’t missed lunch. She’d gotten so wrapped up in her sketching she’d lost track of time. As her stomach let out a particularly insistent growl, she clutched her hand over it hoping to silence it. Her other hand reached up to tuck a strand of long hair behind her ear, and as her hair was moved out of her face a golden glint caught her eye.

Her eyes darted around looking for the source of the golden sparkle but before she figured it out she ran right into...

A guitar?

Accompanied by the echoing hollow thud and twang of what might have been a broken string, Ivy bounced off the instrument strapped to the back of an older boy and landed hard on her bottom on the stone floor. Looking up at the boy apologetically, she also noticed Professor Kitridge and several other students standing around to witness her embarrassment.

”Oh... I... Did I... I’m so sorry...” she stammered in horror.

Wondering around is what brought Whitney to the Great Hall. Er...well actually she'd spotted Professor Kitridge carrying the TACKY AS ALL GET OUT decorations in there and followed to see what was going on. Hopefully a bonfire with said decorations. They were just that eye burningly tacky. Pun unintended but stays.

Nope, she could not be that lucky. Instead, it appeared that these were new decor items. "What's wrong with the old curtains?" she wondered out loud. Not that she was particularly fond of them either, but they were much better than the new ones. Which, again, should definitely be burned along with the tablecloth and the headmaster's new.....was that a throne? *whistle* "All the jewlery those diamonds and that gold could've made...." Also, what was wrong with the headmaster's old chair?

Did she mention how tacky this new stuff is?

Between classes and patrolling, seventhyear was proving to be a bitstressful. Actually, it was more between classes, patrolling and studying for NEWTs, but Carys was trying to find time for the latter. Although, it was the letter in her hand that was more distracting to the Hufflepuff prefect as she’d wandered into the Great Hall to see if there was anything she could grab as a snack before she had to go back to everything else.

Until she caught a glint in her peripheral vision, and she glanced up from the parchment in her hand to eye the, well, throne in place of the former chair the headmaster used during feasts and such. “What…,” she murmured, only getting that much more confused as she saw her head of house overseeing replacing the other features of the room with yet more gold, moving closer almost involuntarily out of her curiosity and, well, concern.

Was there anything wrong with what they already had? What did the poor enchanted candles do to deserve being taken down from their lofty positions? It was all just so weird for Hogwarts to change suddenly. And that was considering all the weirdness the castle had thrown at them over the past years, but she suspected this wasn’t the castle’s doing at all.

Newt homework never seemed to end did it? With his backpack stuffed full of books and other stuff Cole was immensly glad that he had learned the spell to make his backpack feel weightless or he probably would have toppled over because of the weight. Heading into the great hall to get a snack Cole before his next class, he noticed the fancy new stuff first and then Professor Cassie and the other student's.

Deciding that getting a snack could wait the blond, tall boy headed closer to the others to offer his assistance. "Hey everyone! Hey Professor Cassie, do you need me to help you with putting up this stuff?" It'd be good wand practice.

With the cup of water on the table, Nem had set about idly turning it about on its surface by their fingertips. A quarter turn one way, a third the other, back to the start position, not unlike fiddling with the dial of an older kind of muggle safe (what a misnomer). At the twitch of Song's fingers, Nem flicked their eyes towards her hands, but ultimately paid the movement no regard.

"Maybe. I'd ask Kale, 'cept I imagine he'll start sulking at any mention of his dad, so, probably not." It helped that Nem ultimately didn't care enough to figure out how it could be sorted out. The Big Man was more their flavour, even if he was totally arrogant and had grand ideas about how much his time was worth (pot, meet kettle). Any theories Nem had, they were keeping close to their chest. It served them and the forces of chaos much better this way.

School shrink though? Nem grimaced, but turned the idea over in their head. Psychiatrists were easy to handle - they had the documents to prove it - but one in the building twenty-four-seven could be far too inconvenient. Or useful. An obstacle they would rather not deal with, however. Abstaining from a response, Nem took another sip of water, laughing at Song's next statement as they set the cup back down again. "Thanks, Aboli. That's nice of you to say." Bad time to point out that Nem hadn't made any of the students cry recently? Yes? Okay. Tactful, see?

Why was Nem not surprised that Song was one of those Divination nuts? The lot of it was rubbish, quite frankly. "To each their own." Utter garbage.

They sat through that next... whatever... patient and attentive. It wasn't necessarily Song's words they were paying the most attention to, however, more the non-verbal stuff, the body language, unspoken cues, the look in her eyes. That, plus her words, plus the delivery, plus the lingering sour feelings, told Nem that they were dealing with someone who was, essentially, a hotbed of emotion. Not out of the ordinary in a teenager, especially here at Hogwarts, but still useful to know.

"Well, I'm convinced," Nem said simply when she was done, draining the rest of their water and pushing the cup away. They looked right back at her then, blue eyes to brown, and held her gaze. "Ignore any hurt feelings for a moment, and think about it, 'cause it's pretty straightforward. I didn't want a detention either, right? So I won someone's bag of stones so that I couldn't be named, and then I named someone else. Wasn't going to get a friend, or their friends if I could help it, or a little kid, so I named my prefect. And then another when that didn't work out. I dunno if it's in the job description or anything, but you lot are the ones who look out for everyone else, especially when they're younger or in your own houses, and you guys are probably most likely to handle what Trent throws at you. It's really nothing personal, why would it be?" That would also explain why they'd gone for Sinclair, afterwards, and then Dakest. It all fit together nicely. "I'm not interested in making enemies." Nobody here measured up anyway.

All that said, Nem glanced at Aboli's hands again, and asked the question that had been drifting through their thoughts for the last few minutes. "So, what's with the gloves? I've always wondered." Just as casual and friendly as they'd ever been. No hard feelings, see?

Kale..Kale....right. Trent kid. The other person she'd made cry recently. Excellent, really. Aboli just shrugged. She had no desire to talk to the Gryffindor. He probably thought she was TERRIBLY mean now, and so...she would be keeping her distance. Her feelings did go out for him, though. Being Trent's kid had to be hard, especially when Trent was being a particularly pain in the behind.

She smiled. Ah. Sarcasm was delightful. "One of the nicer things I've said recently, probably. At least you haven't started crying yet." She shrugged and stroked the lettering on the cover of her journal. It was a prettily bound book with embossed, shiny letters. Hard to feel with her gloves on, though. No matter...she still traced them absentmindedly. Did Nem not believe in Divination stuff? Interesting. It checked out.

Fine. She would listen, then, Nem, and make an assessment afterward. His line of reasoning made sense, she supposed, and she supplied Nem with a few nods to show that she was following and listening and blaaaah blah. Once he was done, though, she sighed and shook her head. "I think you're lying," she replied. "But that's fine." She didn't lift her gaze from his. "Whatever. If you don't want me to take it personally, I'll, you know, try to get past it. And not hate you. Since I should be mature." She was blabbering just a little.

Ah, the gloves.

"Do you actually want to know?" she asked, a glint in her eye. Aboli normally did not tell people she did not consider friends, lest they know the very personal gift she had been born with. However, she pulled them off and held her left hand flat, palm up. "If I tell you, you have to keep it a secret. And if you keep it secret, I suppose I can forgive you for......sending me to detention," she softened her voice so anyone around would not be able to hear. "You couch touch my hand...arm...if you want." She even rolled up her sleeve to reveal her skin. There were no blemishes, as Minjae had thought when he first asked her why she hid her hands from the world. And only recently, too, since she decided to stop taking the potions.

This was just so fun and soon there were others there to help her. Giving Josh a big smile as some of the candles started to float down, "Well Josh this is some renovations the castle was in need of. The house elves are off helping with other areas so I thought I'd give a hand here. Isn't it marvelous. I mean it could use some more pink in places, but it is fun to get to decorate. Would you like to help?" He could start on one side as she kept working on this side.

"Yes Ashley, it seems the school has. Have you seen other parts of the castle getting all spruced up? No big occasion Adam just some much need renovations. If you both would like to practice your levitation charms you could hang those curtains there." Pointing to the new curtains she thought maybe the first years could handle that.

"Oh my goodness, are you alright Ivy?" There of course was food on the far table for students just needing to eat, but if she wanted to stay and have some fun with them she was more than welcomed. Seeing two more students walk in she gave them both snapping hellos, " Aren't the new ones just amazing Whitney I can't say there were anything wrong with the old, except for they were old. Sometimes you just need some change." Looking over to her prefect she gave the girl a little wave, " Carys, there are a few more staff chairs over there could you grab them for me."

She hoped everyone would jump in and help her make the Great Hall look grand.

The explanations given to the others only had confused Carys more. If only just because before now, it had seemed like tradition was a big thing when it came to the castle, and all the replacements just made it seem more like a fairy tale castle with kings and so on. Maybe like the castle in Annwn where Pwyll had first met Rhiannon, even. Legend-type places, but Hogwarts wasn’t a legend. At least, it wasn’t that type of legend. All these ‘improvements’ seemed like there was a competition with Beauxbatons as to who could be stuffier, and she wasn’t about to relegate her cat to the barns just because of some temporary whim.

She wondered what the castle ghosts thought of it all, too, and the portraits…which only drew her down the path of remembering the past term when the founders had escaped theirs. Only to be pulled back once she realized her head of house was addressing her. “Where am I bringing them to?,” she asked innocently, slipping the letter from the scout into her bag.

Yay. Tacky curtains. "Sure I can hang stuff up." Ashley started hanging the stuff up. Using magic. What fun. She glanced around at the other people. Maybe one of them would want to make this interesting. Perhaps the other people. For now, Ashley entertained herself by recalling random memories that she enjoyed. She smiled to herself. Even if these curtains were lame, she was having a fun time hanging them up. As long as she stuck to only good memories.

With all the help Cassie just knew they would be done in no time and could move on to the common rooms. Her eyes moved around the Great Hall seeing all the changes come together. How fancy the castle looked and how wonderfully decorated it was, but she still felt some pink would make it pop just a bit more. Pulling her wand she did change one or two table linings into pink. The headmaster wouldn't mind if she put her own twist in just a bit.

"Oh just up here at the table. You can take the old chairs to the door, the elves will be taking them to storage." She spoke to her houses prefect as she moved to adjust the staff table just a little bit.

"Wonderful, this all looks just wonderful." She snapped as she looked at all the students that were helping her. "Very good Ashley, you are doing wonderful at your spells."

Serena glared on the ground that she had been stepping on as she made her way into the great hall. Coming back from the disaster that was the Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson, the Slytherin was definitely in one of her nastier moods. She was already mentally composing her letter to both of parents, detailing the horrifying events of being stuck in the Forbidden Forest because the headmaster had left them to die fend for their own.

In her head, she had already reached the part where she was strongly recommending writing to the Board of Trustees when someone coming from the behind her bumped into her, causing her to drop her satchel, her books and quills spilling from it and rolling to different directions.

The girl whirled around and glared "What is your problem?!"

It's a night like any other in the Great Hall. The elves have prepared a scrumptious feast for all and the room is filled with a potent mixture of great flavours. A recipe for a good evening.

Until the food goes bad.

Quite suddenly, the food before you, in your plate, your mouth or on your fork rots. The tantalizing smells that once filled the Great Hall are quickly replaced by odors you'd hope never to smell again.

Mold grows on everything. Flies appear from seemingly nowhere. There's definitely a lot more green now. So much for dinner.

Ashley had been picking at her food. Reluctant to eat, she was in the middle of contemplating her life choices when all of the food STARTED ROTTING. It was a good thing that she hadn't eaten. She so did not have time for this smell to interrupt her brooding. "Gross. Hey, is this that ghost that was being threatening or is the school trying to kill us? Maybe it's both," she said a little loudly to the person next to her. She did not acknowledge the smell, because it was horrible and she preferred to ignore it. She took out some gum. That stuff couldn't rot. The smell was a nice change. "Mr. Ghost, I low-key do not have time for you right now. Get over yourself. Why not just rot the decorations that you hate so much? You are the worst."

Avalon was mindlessly munching on her dinner as she flipped through her Transfiguration textbook. With OWLs right around the corner, she was using up any bit of free time to study - and that included mealtime. She had just lifted a forkful of mashed potatoes to her mouth when her nose detected a rancid odor. Turning to her food, she dropped her fork in shock as she noticed mold multiplying over her dinner plate. "What the....?" Her face scrunched up in disgust as she noticed flies proliferating around the Ravenclaw table. A quick glance to her side showed that Ashley's food was rotten too. And so was everyone's food in the Great Hall.

Oh, she so hoped that she hadn't been shoveling spoiled food into her mouth for the past 30 minutes. Avalon had been so engrossed in her studying that she didn't even notice if the mold was there to begin with.

Unlike her friend, Irithel was very much enjoying her dinner. Her mouth full of chips, she was about to ask Ashley why she was picking at her food when she said "gross". Huh? What's gross? She swallowed the food in her mouth to speak and immediately regretted it. "UGH. That was DISGUSTING," she scowled. A glance at her fork and plate told her that mould was growing on her food - she must have eaten a large chunk of rotten food. She could swear that her chips were fine just a minute ago ...

But she was not in the right state of mind to think logically about why this was happening. She had to clear the horrible taste from her mouth first. Pinching her nose to block out the odour, she reached for her goblet of milk, only to find mould floating in it too. Oh no, all the beverages must be rotten too! "Can I have some clean water? Anyone?" she asked the people near her, her eyes landing on Prefect Avalon. The older students knew how to conjure water magically, right? Please help this poor kid!!